I quite admit that the Irish landlord is wrong in rack-renting his tenant to the extent of grinding out of him one-third of the amount that is cheerfully paid by tenants in protectionist countries.
I admit that he should not have tried in a Free Trade country to have extorted more than one-tenth of the rent paid by protectionist tenants. Nay, I will go further. I don’t think that a tenant in Free Trade Ireland would farm to a profit even if he had the land rent-free. I admit also that it was selfish of the landlord to allow the question of his own pauperism to weigh in the question of rent.
Still, after making due allowance for all these faults, I cannot quite understand how his guilt is sufficiently proven to warrant his continued persecution and gradual extermination, by enactment after enactment for his ruin, should he chance to escape assassination. A snake or a rat could not be hunted down with greater venom. I must say that, in spite of his crimes, he is an object of pity.
Perhaps an analysis of his villainy may help me to understand the heinousness of his crime; let us apply, therefore, to the political economist for the character of the rent, the instrument with which he commits his crime—what does he say?[66]
“Rent does not affect the price of agricultural produce.”[67]
“Whoever does pay rent gets back its full value in extra advantage, and the rent which he pays does not place him in a worse position than, but only in the same position as, his fellow-producer who pays no rent, but whose instrument is one of inferior efficiency.”[68]
“Rent is reached by bargaining between the landlord and tenant; bargaining founded on the practical elements existing in the business. Profit must satisfy the tenant, or he will not take the farm; and on the other hand, if he claim an unduly low rent, he will find a rival competitor stepping into the farm house.... The position of an in-coming tenant is that of a man who is buying a business for sale (for whether he purchases the farm outright in order to cultivate it, or hires it, makes no difference in the nature of the transaction). He is buying a specific business in a given locality, as any man might do in a manufacturing town, and his motive is profit. This consideration governs the whole of the negotiation between the landowner and himself ... upon the terms of an annual payment of the means of profit which he seeks to acquire.”[69]
Yes! This appears to me to be just and business-like; the tenant hires the land for the profit he expects to get out of it, and his rent is a simple debt. Proceed:—
“To refuse to pay debt violently is to steal, and to permit stealing is not only to dissolve, but to demoralize, society.”[70]